Blooms Digital Poster for the Classroom

In the beginning of the year, one of my goals for my team was to standardize how the objectives are displayed in our rooms. Now, since we're "specials," our team is made up of a hodgepodge of Art, Band, Spanish, Technology, and PE.

I asked every member of our team to research their own Bloom's verbs. I used Bloom's revised taxonomy for my list. For myself, I found the edorigami wiki extremely helpful. You can check out this wonderful technology resource here:  
http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/
http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Bloom's+Digital+Taxonomy

Below is the poster I came up with. As you can see, the levels are color coded. I make my objectives for the day and post them on screen, such as:

I can produce an mp3 audio file by splitting, editing, and joining clips in Garageband.

This type of integration brings the student into the learning process, and they can immediately keep me in check with just how much I am really challenging them to think at a higher level. It also keeps me in check to remind myself as a teacher to keep reaching for the top. There are many more verbs, but using just a handful is good for a teacher who only sees his students 2-3 times per week for 10 weeks.

If you'd like to download this poster, it's available in PDF and WordX format here:
http://drop.io/rezactutorials2/asset/critical-thinking-tech-pdf
http://drop.io/rezactutorials1/asset/critical-thinking-tech-docx
Hope it's helpful!

Tutorial or not Tutorial?

As you know I've been talking about process in my practice a lot. I'm very interested in how kids learn, and I've noticed something that my students are doing. I wonder if other teachers see this, or how it plays out.

You see, since I've begun using tutorials in my classroom to guide teaching (just about on any software), the success of computers skills and project completion has gone up meteorically. And I mean through the roof. I've started training my kids how to use tutorials to complete tasks, and it has done wonders for my classes and practice.

I started an account on youtube (youtube.com/misterrezac) strictly for my tutorials, and also created a site where my students can see them by class.

Why was today different?
Now, this new trimester, all but three weeks long, I've used tutorials almost every day for just about every skill imaginable. Things have been going superbly. Sometimes I model the small skill then tell students to watch the tutorial anyway, but today I had a quite long modeling session, and some of the students decided that they didn't want to watch all of the tutorials that went with into the task of the lesson.

And, you can guess what happened. Many of them had questions, were confused, but they didn't want to spend the five minutes to go back and watch the tutorials. So they were frustrated that they had to go back.

Just go to the tutorials. But what form of teaching is that?

I've found lately that instead of modeling, I might show the students a very brief model or just the final product, and just have them go right to the tutorials. Over and over again, I find that with computer skills, the tutorials just work.  It's dramatic. I was being observed on my first week by my AP, and almost every student in my class, all brand new to Google Apps created a new Google Site from a template that I created without fail. Even I was astonished. This was the first time they were using Google Apps.

Do any other teachers find this is true, and if it is, couldn't the same be true with math tutorials and writing tutorials as well?

What do you think?

Google Apps for Education and the Teacher's Process

Do these steps look familiar? 

As teachers, we all use Gagne's steps, for the most part, but what I've found is most teachers may not even remember where these steps came from, me included, until recently: American Educational Psychologist Robert Gagne.

Gagne's steps were based around the Information Processing theory, where the goal was to maximize retention of knowledge (most likely- rote knowledge).

While I don't believe treating the learner like a machine (computer) is a very helpful metaphor, project-based learning and Understanding by Design models of instructional design have fashioned the Nine Steps to their liking.

The Nine Steps still work- for good lesson plan organization, and can be used for higher-order learning as well.

I've found that the Google Apps for Ed environment allows the Nine Steps to really flourish and take on a new life of their own. This presentation was given on October 3rd, 2009 at the ICE-chip Mini-Conference and explores how Google Apps transforms the teacher's educational process into the digital world.



Links that were used in this presentation:

1. Gaining Attention: 
1. Google Presentation Sample, Simple Machines: http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AWWzaaRnYL0HZGNmZzliNjZfMjYxY2Z6dHdnY3E&hl=en
2. Describe the Goal/ Objective
1. Google Presentation Sample: Researching the Land, 3rd Slide in: http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AUKY528tgMv_ZGR3MnZxeF82N2Y1Y2oyYmN6&hl=en
3. Stimulate Prior Knowledge:
1. Anticipation Quiz Form Sample: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dDVBZ2trdUxVc0tMNWUwU1JvSjRyUlE6MA..
4. Present New Content: 
1.  Google Presentation Sample: Researching the Land, 6th Slide in: http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AUKY528tgMv_ZGR3MnZxeF82N2Y1Y2oyYmN6&hl=en
2. Text Coding with Doug Buehl, Google Books
5. Provide Guidance
1. Tutorials: Using Google Video and You Tube to embed tutorials in a Presentation: 
1. Citing Creative Commons image tutorial: http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AWWzaaRnYL0HZGNmZzliNjZfMjY0ZnRyOXJiZHE&hl=en
2. Using other teacher and student tutorials as guidance: http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AWWzaaRnYL0HZGNmZzliNjZfMjY1Zzc4aGc2NTY&hl=en
6. Elicit Performance
7. Provide Feedback
1. Love Letter Video embedded in Google Presentation:http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AWWzaaRnYL0HZGNmZzliNjZfMjY2Z2t0d2g0amQ&hl=en
8. Assess Performance:
1. Digital Scantron Form: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dEpwNm40NmtQb3RKeVJiLUpXQ29nV2c6MA
9. Enhance Retention

Extra links:
Google Apps for Ed
My RTI data form example


Thanks to http://www.e-learningguru.com/articles/art3_3.htm  for the nine-steps image.